The secrecy surrounding the operations of the Vatican power apparatus,
both in terms of the scope of the church as of their economic and
political management, as well as the questionable human quality
of many of their remarkable men, has led-and surely will lead-to
creating all sorts of theories, hypotheses, legends and Chinese
stories about what is happening, or what is supposed to be happening
inside the very alleged home of Peter.

One of the most
successful conspiranoic literary legends during the last four decades,
aims to show the infiltration of Freemasonry at the highest levels
of the Vatican, a process that would reach up to its summit, with
the progressive Paul VI -accused of being a Mason, of course, to
end up falling irremediably down with ultra-conservative Pope John
Paul II.

The first question
that should be asked by any amateur criminologist could be, what
would Masonry win by infiltrating under the skirts of cardinals
and others of that same species? For those who know the Freemasons
and the Catholic Church, the answer would be, nothing at all! In
the case that "Freemasonry" would be devoted to such games,
the Freemasons would miserably waste their time, money and efforts.

But for those
who imagine the Freemasons and the Catholic Church for what they
are not, have never been, and never will be, the answer would point
to the opposite extreme, to an excessive craving for achieving the
control of the world, falling in the stupidity of believing that
those with a real capacity to influence events and certain sectors
of society can not do without wearing an apron or without belonging
to something very hidden and named in some sophisticated way. In
what handbook of the high degrees of cretinism is it said that to
conspire, one needs to put on an embroidered uniform? Conspiring
seems certainly more literary while dressed in black in a lodge
located in a basement of the Vatican; but people who are dedicated
to this ancient art prefer to remain in the Bermudas, by their own
pool, sharing a good lobster on the table. They may be conspirers,
but no fools.

Masons in the
Vatican? Yes, indeed. Already Malachi Martin, a Jesuit who was adviser
to Pope Pius XII -who in 1950 imposed the dogma that the Virgin
was raised to heaven in body and soul -, was speaking in his books
-for example in Vatican (1986) - about the presence of Masonic,
and even satanic pedophiles in the vortexes of the Catholic Church,
hallucinating miles after drinking, among others, the already dry
sources of their coreligionists Leó Taxil, the lying writer
who, in the nineteenth century, invented a remarkable part of the
black legend of Freemasonry, lies publicly unveiled and recognized
by himself, but that still are fostered and repeated from within
the Catholic cave.

In recent times,
many books have addressed the issue of the freemasons infiltrating
the Vatican and their alleged struggle to seize power within the
Church. Under the pseudonym of The Millenarians, Monsignor Marinelli,
in his book Via col vento in Vaticano, published in Spain as El
Vaticano contra Dios [The Vatican against God] (1999), spoke of
various members of the curia to whom he appends the Masonic affiliation.
For more ecstasy, he also plays out the pathetic, absurd and empty
confession -as if there was a microphone in the confessional? -of
an alleged repentant satanic group member who, according to Marinelli,
goes camping wildly inside the Vatican.

Another suspect
pseudonym, Disciples of Truth, is used to continue the task started
by The Millenaries when they publish Lies and crimes in the Vatican
(2000) and In the Shadow of the Sick Pope (2001), books in which
fables are given out, without the slightest shame or rigor, on the
alleged war between the curial power led by Opus Dei and "Masonry,
led by Archbishop Paul Marcinkus".

Authors far
removed from these have also fallen into the temptation of giving
credence to such arguments. Ricardo de la Cierva did the same in
his book The Invisible Freemasonry (2002); Jorge Blaschke and Santiago
Rio, expressing many more doubts than De la Cierva, addressed the
matter in True History of the Masons (2006) and this author is no
less guilty than they are, as he decided not to address the issue
for being too absurd, when in the last minute he omitted his opinion
about a folly that many believe is real. Novels such as Dan Brown's
raise the topic unto the category of some intergalactic threat.

Is there any
basis for believing that a portion of their eminences would wear
an apron under their cassocks? The only evidence is an alleged listing
of alleged clergy freemasons, their parents as unknown as doubtful,
which over three decades has been played out in various -mostly
very conservative Catholic media-, in tabloid and uncritical manners.

The alleged
list of Vatican Freemasons was published in several Italian media
since 1976, a year to remember, since the appearance of the list
at that time was not coincidental. According to available data,
the listing appeared in the weekly Panorama on August 10, 1976,
being reproduced in the same year in Publia Gazzette and in the
French Bulletin de l'Occident Chrétien; in Euroitalia it
was published on August 17, 1978; In OP (Osservatore Politico) it
was published on September 12, 1978, in Oggi on June 17, 1981; and
in 30 Giorni -a magazine by the ultra-conservative group - on November
11, 1992. That same listing will be printed by Ricardo de la Cierva
(2002) and Jorge Blaschke and Santiago Rio (2006) in their respective
books already cited.

[See the alleged
list of Vatican Freemasons: Part
1 (108 Kb), part
2 (138 Kb) and Part
3 (69 Kb)].

The roster of
freemasonic clerics varies very slightly and depending on the medium
that made it available, goes up to one hundred and twenty names,
most of them bishops, but with a well-nourished group of nearly
a dozen cardinals. In sum, representing 2 per cent of the bishops
and 7 per cent of the cardinals, demonstrating how vast is the power,
-assuming that because they are Masons- they set the vast majority
of Catholic church power represented by fellow non-Masons to checkmate,
according to the conspiranoics.

No need to insist
too much on the fact that since 1738 the Catholic dome, with Clement
XII, believed to smell sulfur and burned horn every time they heard
or imagined the word "Mason". Such vast ignorance about
Freemasonry was only comparable to the superb paranoia they unleashed
by that mere name. That propensity to Masonic panic had not disappeared
from the Roman curia, let alone when John XIII and Paul VI opened
the Church to the modern world through the Second Vatican Council;
and it survives to this day in the greatest of the curial cavern.

A friend specialized
in studies of the Vatican, cleric and excellent knower of the ultraconservative
Roman curial told me of anecdotes he lived that are quite eloquent
in relation to the matter at hand. For example, Cardinal Pietro
Palazzini, a friend of Escrivá de Balaguer, considered that
the Freemasons caused the world's problems and that, more critically,
the Queen of England ruled it all. Another Cardinal, Silvio Oddi,
was so concerned about the possible influence that Freemasonry would
have on the conclave for the succession of Pope John Paul II, that
he came to propose, with insistence, that the conclave should be
made public rather than secret, so that everyone could see each
cardinal's vote, to discover that way the dread compliance with
Masonic slogans.

Also the telluric
Marcel Lefebvre shared fears of his colleagues, though, more cautiously,
saying that he did not know if some prelates were Masons, since
it was a secret society, but that some of them had acted as if they
were. In the journals of that environment-Sí Sí No
No and Le Courrier de Rome-, the Masonic presence in the Vatican
dome has always been given as a fact.

For Luigi Villa,
director of the magazine Chiesa Viva, there was no doubt that the
Popes John XXIII and Paul VI were freemasons, but the arguments
given to justify such an opinion do not support even a sneeze, that's
how flimsy they were... although many current conservative prelates
are still repeating those in private, making freemasons out of Paul
VI, the Cardinals Casaroli, Cardinal Pio Laghi, Agostino Bea or
Benelli, and Lanza Montezemolo -designer of the new papal coat-,
and any other who would smell like progressivism.

According to
the Roman Curia, through the hands of ultra-conservative prelates
have passed grossly counterfeit letters that were attributed to
Cardinal Agostino Casaroli, identified under its Masonic secret
acronym 'CASA', awarded to him in the listing that we have been
quoting.

The key to understanding
the substance of such absurd allegations is the notion that these
prelates and many others (also related doctrinal) have had -and
still have - over the fact of being a Mason. From the most reactionary
of Catholic statement, by "Mason" is meant the same as
one of their sacred coreligionists, Francisco Franco, supposed it
to mean. These prelates, like the very Catholic dictator Franco,
saw a Mason ambushed behind every Democrat, every liberal, every
progressive ... they saw a Mason behind each discrepant with deep
dogmatism. And they saw Jewish-Masonic conspiracies threatening
(them) everywhere.

Behind this
list one should guess the thinking and interests of the most reactionary
sectors of the Roman Curia, both by the fact that hundreds of clerics
who are cited in it were part of the more progressive sector of
the Catholic Church -something that for Cardinal Giuseppe Siri,
who believed that the Masonic infiltration was real, led him to
assert that the list was false, since, according to him, there were
freemasons also in the right wing, and not only among the progressives
by the date around which the list was first published, August 1976.

The Second Vatican
Council opened doors to progressive church approaches that led the
most conservative and traditionalist in the Catholic hierarchy to
panic and hysteria, they hated Paul VI for that same reason -and
they succeeded in canceling much of this progress during the pontificate
of Wojtyla -; in that opening, as we saw in a previous section,
a new look towards Freemasonry was included, portraying Freemasonry
as compatible with the Catholic belief. In this regard, between
1974 and 1976, many episcopates and dozens of religious institutions
that felt supported by Cardinal Seper, prefect of the Congregation
for the Doctrine of the Faith, which in July 1974, had declared
the dual affiliation compatible for the believer, kept "the
prohibition for clerics, members of religious and secular institutes,
from entering into any Masonic partnership".

With such background
in mind, the making of a list of freemasonic clerics as the most
reactionary interests, covered many flanks at the same time: the
list invested the most prominent ecclesiastical progressive sector
with serious suspicions, while involving them in the express prohibition
by Seper of 1974; also defaming and weakening Paul VI; placing Freemasonry
back into the camp of the conspirators and enemies of the Church;
and played the alarm so that the traditionalistic forces were able
to rearm with their most rancid dogmatism.

The authors
of the original list, in order to make things credible, provided
names, dates of registration in Freemasonry, registration numbers,
secret acronyms identifying and position of each cleric mentioned
in the list, for example: "Casaroli Agostino: 28 / 9 / 1957
- Ma-tricola 41/076 - Case (Ministerio Affari Esteri)".

The oldest Mason's
listing is dated July 1955 -Morgante Marcello: 22/7/1955 - Registration
78/0361 - MORMA (Vescovo di Ascoli Piceno) - and the last incorporated
is of December 1970 -Nigro Caramel: 21 / 12/1970 - Matricole 23/154
- CARNI (Rettore Seminar Pontifical per gli Studi Giuridici) -,
covering the listing for the last portion in the life of a Pius
XII already very sick, and the stage of opening and ecclesiastical
modernization of the pontificate by John XXIII and Paul VI (until
1970).

The choice of
that time period, between 1955 and 1970, of placing the advancement
of Freemasonry on the Vatican dome, does not seem coincidental.
It is not coincidental, taking into account the pontificate periods
involved; but it is suspicious that the list ends by the end of
1970, when Grand Master Lino Salvini took office at the Grand Orient
of Italy (GOI). Salvini, an arrogant with little lights who allowed
the delinquent Licio Gelli to begin shaping his mafia network under
the umbrella of the Masonic lodge Propaganda 2, an organization
that, indeed, from 1971, but not before, will become firmly established
among the most corrupt Italian men of Christian democracy; and from
his hand, eventually entering the Vatican, although not looking
to initiate freemasons among the cardinals, but on the contrary,
making contacts and partners to undertake large and corrupt business
with some cardinals... who were not exactly progressive.

In this network
of ecclesiastical Freemasonry, in which someone with little imagination
baptized as loggia Ecclesia, had belonged to the mafia organization
of Licio Gelli -as repeated ad nauseam by Catholics writers and
journalists and diverse conspiranoics -, its affiliates would have
entered from1971 on, but not before. But it turns out that the list
of freemasonic clerics dates to its last initiate to the end of
1970. Moreover, only someone illiterate in Masonic matters, or a
manipulator, could claim that the alleged loggia Ecclesia was "in
direct contact with the Grand Master of the United Grand Lodge of
England, Duke Michael of Kent". If the Ecclesia had been part
of Propaganda 2 by Gelli, it could not have had any connection with
the British GLUI, and if it had belonged to the GLUI, it could not
have had the structure or the location that is being adjudicated
to it. The fabrication seems more than evident.

Curiously, when
in May 1981, listings of members of the Propaganda 2 by Licio Gelli
were seized and published, political, military, journalists, editors,
lawyers ... all, except ecclesiastical figures were among the 962
names. A miracle indeed, if we recall that many members of Gelli's
corrupt organization were daily mass Catholics, with deep economic
and personal relationships with members of the Vatican curia, and
precisely this path of brotherhood among the freemasons of Gelli's
mafia with the clergy's mafia, as Cardinal Marcinkus which, among
many other disasters, led to the bankruptcy of the IOR (Institute
for Works of Religion), called the Vatican bankruptcy, and, indirectly,
facilitated the rise of Opus Dei to the control apparatus of the
Catholic Church.

The tempo of
the apparitions of that listing in the Italian press also deserves
some attention. So when, in August 1976, the list of "Vatican
freemasons" was first published, Licio Gelli was being judged
within the Grand Orient of Italy for his many perpetrated irregularities,
a fact that went unnoticed before masons and profanes. The noise
that was triggered by the publication of that list was useful to
many, also to Gelli, who momentarily would save his Masonic skin
inside the GOI.

The following
recurrences of the listing in the Italian press also lacked manipulative
context. In the magazine Oggi (17 June 1981) the listing was published
when, after renewing condemnation against Freemasonry, in February
that year by order of the new Pope Wojtyla, it became evident it
was not taken seriously or adopted by a majority of bishops; but
in those days in May, another problem for the Church also emerged
when, in the middle of the investigation of some fraudulent bankruptcy
starring Michele Sindone, the roster of members of the "Freemasonry"
of Gelli appeared brimming with fervent Catholics, as noted above.

A decade later,
in the weekly 30 Giorni (November 11, 1992), the publication of
the list in the body of the ultraconservative Communion and Liberation
-which will have Giulio Andreotti, one of the darkest and twisted
wretches of world politics, among its directors -came to reinforce
the resurgence of the anti-Masonic campaign that Ratzinger had launched
at the beginning of that year, from Avvenire, the newspaper of the
Italian bishops.

We could extend
what has been said unto this point to many additional comments,
leading us to believe that the listing of "Massoni Vaticani"
was a falsehood fabricated by the most reactionary of the Roman
Curia; a rabble not unknown to the very Licio Gelli and his own
private circle of depraved Christian Democrats.

However, it
would be risky on our part, to deny the possibility that some ecclesiastical
figure, prelate or not, would had been a Mason in those days. Their
initiation as such does not seem very feasible, but at that time
many clerics and also prelates, maintained excellent relations with
Freemasons and they shared many of the ideas and approaches that
both institutions have in common ... just as those same groups related
and exchanged thoughts with personages from various fields as well.
Where is the danger? Perhaps the danger could be in reducing the
level of dogmatism that is imposed by the Holy Mother Church on
her own peoples?

But, what did
exist and still exists among the Vatican Curia and its heavenly
court, is another form of brotherhood that, more in the style of
Propaganda 2 by Licio Gelli-and not Masonic in any manner- is made
out of the so-called "careerists", who help each other
to quietly climb and thrive through the merciless forest of cassocks
that toil to build the kingdom on behalf of their own interests,
while grazing pastures on someone else's lawns.